and I'm sayin' it here.

Proud to Be Silly

I was debating whether to adopt the practice of having a certain type of post on the same day of every week, which seems to be common practice on many blogs, say like Silly Saturday. . But I decided no. This is my chance to not copy others. So I’m going to be silly whenever I feel like I need to be, which would be tonight.

I name things. Sometimes I name things because it is easier to remember a name than it is to remember what the thing is. For instance, Ted. Ted is a piece of furniture I’ve had for over 20 years. I’ve never been able to figure out what exactly Ted is but it sits in my dining room and holds dishes and tablecloths, batteries and flashlights. Not a china cabinet, not really a buffet, it became easier to just call it Ted. Especially when trying to tell someone like the husband where to find something in it. “Look in the drawer of the…. of the….. that thing in the dining room!” So much easier to say “Look in the top drawer of Ted.” And now, after nearly a quarter century he’s finally figured out who Ted is.

I also like to name my vehicles. They are with me for so long that they become disturbingly like family members – they may as well have names. My last vehicle, the Aztek, was named Sunny which was short for sunshine, being that it was bright, schoolbus yellow. I’ve had my new old car for almost three weeks now and have been unsure what to name it. I wanted something meaningful. Today I decided to call it LC (Elsie). LC stands for little car which is my first thought almost every time I interact with the thing. “My goodness, this is a little car!” I think, as I try to figure out where to put my coffee cup, my cereal bowl, my purse, my workbasket, my sunglasses, and my lunch. “My goodness this is a little car!” I think as the husband bangs his head climbing into the passenger seat. “This is a little car!” I say to myself as the pump only puts in 9 gallons on a fill-up and goes twice as far on that as the previous vehicle.

I have a daughter with the “naming gene” too. Her present truck is named Nemesis. We bought it for her rather hastily, without her input and she pretty much can’t stand the thing. The car she had before Nemesis was named Claire. I know she named her very first car too but I can’t remember it’s name, Patty or something like that. I didn’t really bond with that car.

I’ve named my houseplants (because I can never remember the word “hydrangea”), several notebooks, my kindle, and my property (the oneacrewoods). I have a cat I call Gray Kitty, which is a very practical name for a gray cat. So you see, naming things is kind of an adaptive mechanism as well as being a bit odd, and it serves me well. I’m just sayin’, I’m kind of proud of being silly when it comes to names.